Vernon man, 26, calls East Lansing the 'sin capital'

Sep. 27, 2013

Oswald Wilder Jr. is charged in four sexual assaults this year in East Lansing / Greg DeRuiter/LSJ

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Oswald Wilder Jr. listens to a witness testifying Friday during his preliminary hearing in court in East Lansing. / Greg DeRuiter/Lansing State Journal

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» Oswald Wilder Jr. will stand trial in Ingham County Circuit Court on nine counts, including first-degree criminal sexual conduct, unlawful imprisonment, and assault with intent to commit criminal sexual conduct. He is being held without bond at the Ingham County Jail. No trial date has been set.

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EAST LANSING — Four female Michigan State University students police say were attacked by an accused serial rapist testified Friday they had never met him.

The four incidents happened earlier this year over a seven-week span — all but one under the cover of darkness.

One 20-year-old woman said she was entering the key code to the back door of her sorority house the early morning of April 26 when she was struck in the head.

“The next thing I know, I wake up ... and I’m on the ground behind a shed,” the woman testified at a preliminary hearing for Oswald Wilder Jr. in 54B District Court.

The 26-year-old Vernon man, who was not connected to the university, was ordered to stand trial on nine counts. Among the charges he faces are first-degree criminal sexual conduct, unlawful imprisonment, and assault with intent to commit criminal sexual conduct. He faces up to life in prison.

The woman from the April 26 incident described how the attacker dragged her by her feet behind the shed. She fought. She screamed in his face. Then, he suddenly ran away.

Wilder told police he ran because a light came on.

The State Journal does not identify alleged victims of sexual crimes. The women range in age from 19 to 24.

Wilder, in a 4 ½-hour interview with detectives after he was arrested in August, implicated himself in all four incidents.

East Lansing police Detective Dan Brown testified that Wilder gave details only someone who was there could have known. DNA evidence connects Wilder to one of the incidents.

Wilder blamed the attacks on his use of crack cocaine — which, according to testimony, he smoked before each incident.

“He said when he smokes rock, it increases his sexual urges to the point where he has trouble controlling it,” Brown said. Wilder also told detectives he had been addicted to heroin and also uses methamphetamine.

The last attack authorities have connected to Wilder, which happened May 16, was the most brazen.

It was still light outside between 7 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. when the 24-year-old woman left her apartment to go for a walk.

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Other people were outside at the time, she testified via Internet video from Canada.

She said she was walking through a parking lot near the Abbott Pointe Apartments when a man grabbed her hair, dragged her behind a Dumpster and “bashed my head into (it).”

She screamed but then stopped, she said, because “I really wanted to survive.”

The sexual assault ended when someone walked by and may have noticed what was happening. The attacker, she said, “just walked away.”

Three of the four women said they would not be able to identify their attacker. The woman attacked May 16 said she never even saw the man’s face. A woman attacked April 21 left open the possibility that she could, but wasn’t certain.